


Dark and Stormy

by therev



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Haunted House, M/M, Sharing a Body, spoopy ghost stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-02
Updated: 2015-11-02
Packaged: 2018-04-29 12:46:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5128157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therev/pseuds/therev
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was a dark and stormy planet, and Jim went and got himself possessed by a ghost. Spock and McCoy must save him in spite of their bickering, or die trying. (Featuring a haunted house and cravats.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dark and Stormy

**Author's Note:**

> A day late for Halloween.

It was a dark and stormy planet. That's how McCoy imagined Jim might begin his log for this particular mission. That is, if they ever found their captain.

It wasn't actually stormy just yet, but the clouds were dark and ominous overhead, the sun setting along the horizon behind crooked and bare trees which grabbed at their uniforms like bony fingers as they passed. McCoy followed closely behind Spock over soft, earthy ground, up a hillside toward Jim's emergency beacon.

"I don't know how Jim ever thought this was a good idea," McCoy said, "agreeing to come down here on his own for first contact with some puffed up aristocrat."

"The Captain did what he felt was necessary," Spock said, not even turning or looking up from his tricorder.

McCoy mumbled to himself about how a security detail could certainly be considered _necessary_ but neither Jim nor the two of them had brought any along. Spock could probably hear every word. McCoy certainly hoped that he did.

From the bridge of the Enterprise, hours before, the planet had seemed safe enough, an uncharted M-Class with humanoid life stuck somewhere around the Victorian era. The audio feed had been poor but McCoy could hear the stuck-up, waist-coated, cravat-wearing fussiness even through the spit and crackle. Then Jim had gone down and shortly after they had lost contact. Spock had waited, and waited, too long for McCoy's liking, until at last the emergency beacon had appeared on Uhura's scans.

On the planet, Spock's communicator clicked. "Any luck down there, Mr. Spock?" came Scotty's voice.

"Negative, Mr. Scott. I would appreciate your keeping this channel clear as instructed."

"Ay, it's only that we were worried--"

" _Clear_ , Mr. Scott," Spock repeated a little more forcefully.

"Ay, sir," Scotty said, then the communicator went silent and Spock returned to tracking Jim's signal.

"They're just impatient to know about Jim!" McCoy said loudly, stumbling over rocks that did not improve his mood. McCoy knew Spock's attitude came from a place of concern for Jim, but so did Scotty's.

"Indeed, Doctor, however, if the Captain attempts to contact us via communicator, I wish for the channel to be open." 

As he said this the ground leveled out and McCoy gave a sigh of relief. He wasn't really in his prime hill climbing days anymore and being on a starship for years tended to speed that process. The path here was covered in grass, a deep green in the low light, and soon they encountered an iron fence. There was a rumble in the distance and lightning struck as if on cue, lighting up the ground ahead.

"Well how about that?" McCoy asked as Spock opened the creaking iron gate and stepped into the graveyard. "It's got the fog and all. Is it real? Not like that monster movie nonsense on Pyris VII?"

Spock consulted his tricorder. He had hardly even looked up from it but it made a different noise now.

"Affirmative, all very real, and if the equipment is not mistaken, the source of Jim's beacon is here." He said it very neutrally, so that McCoy had to ask him if he'd really said what he thought he had heard.

"But that would mean--"

"We do not yet know what it means, Doctor. Please refrain from rash assumption." He stepped around each headstone and McCoy bit his tongue, as he was about to tell Spock that it was disrespectful and bad luck to step on graves.

"The Earth here is disturbed," Spock said and knelt, slung the tricorder over his shoulder and began digging wildly with his hands. "Please assist me, Doctor."

McCoy knelt, too. Spock was right, the dirt was loose and they easily scooped it away even as the first drops of a rainstorm began to fall. Minutes passed silently except for the rain, harder now, splashing into the puddle growing in the hole that they had dug, until about two feet down Spock's hand stopped and pulled up something. The rainfall rinsed it, shining gold in the lightning.

"Jim's communicator!" McCoy shouted over the noise of the rain, watching the steady flash of the communicator's emergency beacon signal.

"The ground beneath is hard-packed," Spock said just as loudly and stood. "I do not believe the Captain is buried here."

"Well that's a relief!" 

"And yet we still do not know where the Captain is located. Now we do not even have a guide."

McCoy got to his feet. Spock helped him up. "Call the Enterprise and we'll run some more scans. We should at least get out of this storm before we're struck by lightning!"

Spock seemed to consider this, looked as if he was about to argue for staying, but then he flipped open his communicator.

"Mr. Scott, Spock here," Spock said and waited. When there was no answer he tried again. "Mr. Scott if you are attempting to be humorous after my last command to keep this channel open it is not appreciated." They waited again but there was nothing. 

McCoy pulled out his communicator and tried, too, calling for Scotty, adjusting the dials, but there was no answer. 

"Whatever affected the Captain's communications must necessarily now be affecting ours."

"Maybe it's the storm?" McCoy suggested.

"Possible but unlikely. We should seek shelter."

They began making their way back down the hill, trying the communicators again in case it was just the area but with no luck. The slope became muddy and slippery, so that McCoy had to hold onto Spock more than once to keep from falling.

"There," Spock said at the foot of the hill, pointing toward the moon which now shone from behind a great house sitting dark against it.

The underbrush was dense and thorny as they trekked through what was rapidly becoming swampland, and up another hill to stand in front of the house, even larger up close, made of stone and several storeys high, with tall windows and peaked rooftops and ornate gables. It loomed with warning, only a few lamps glowing in dark windows, like watchful, flickering eyes.

"You've got to be kidding me," McCoy said but the rain was still pouring and the lightning seemed to chase them up the hillside.

At the door they found shelter at last and stood dripping on cobblestones, Spock's hair plastered even more flat against his head.

"From the looks of this place, if we're lucky, they're not home." 

"The Captain may have also sought shelter here," Spock said.

McCoy shrugged and clanged the heavy iron knocker against the door. It seemed to echo throughout the house.

The door opened immediately.

"Mr. Spock, Dr. McCoy," the woman there said and bowed. She was tall and thin, dressed in layers of black complete with a bonnet over white hair and looked as if she should not have been able to handle the heavy door. "The master of the house has been expecting you."

McCoy and Spock exchanged glances.

"Us?" McCoy said. "What about Captain Kirk, did he arrive ahead of us?"

"I do not know a Captain Kirk. If you will follow me, I will show you to your rooms."

"Now wait a minute--" but Spock stopped McCoy with a hand on his shoulder.

"Thank you, madam, that would be most appreciated," Spock said.

McCoy glared at him but it didn't seem to matter one way or the other to the woman who stood silently, face passive, even when they stepped in and McCoy apologized for dripping all over her fine floor, or as they ascended the staircase wider than the width of one of the hallways on the Enterprise, and even when she showed Spock to his room.

"Dinner will be in one hour. The doctor will be next door," she explained and Spock bowed slightly and disappeared behind the door. She repeated the same thing at the next door, opened it with one of a fistful of keys which clanged in the folds of her skirt, and then left McCoy in a room lit by candlelight and firelight. The door shut behind her with an ominous click.

The room was ornately decorated with dark wooden furniture and gilded frames with paintings of people on horseback or people hunting foxes in red coats with trumpets, and the bed was a large curtained four poster. Yet for all the splendor and the warmth of the fire, the room seemed unnaturally cold and damp, and once the sheen of finery wore away McCoy noticed tears in the tapestry, stains in the rugs, patched up places in the linens and nicks in the wood.

There was a knock on his wall which resounded deep and final, as if meant to wake the dead.

"Dr. McCoy?" Spock's voice called, muffled, and then the wall opened--not a wall but a door to the adjacent room. McCoy felt foolish. Waking the dead indeed. He was too old for this.

"Well what now, Mr. Spock?," he said when Spock appeared around the door. "I presume you got us in here to look for Jim?"

"Indeed, Doctor," Spock said, still dripping with a steady, dull thud against the rugs. His cheeks were a chilly green, and McCoy coaxed him toward the fire.

"And I presume you considered that this could be a trap?"

"I weighed the risk and found no alternative. Jim was here, that much is clear. That she knew our names is proof of it."

"Or proof that she got into the ship's records somehow."

"Unlikely. Their level of technology would not be conducive to such an intrusion."

"But we don't really know much about them. That was the problem in the first place. Just because it looks like we're in the nineteenth century doesn't mean that we are. We've certainly been fooled before."

Spock thought, the firelight flickering on fine cheekbones and dark eyes. "Logical, Doctor."

McCoy did a double take. "Did I just hear that right?"

"Perhaps my concern for the Captain is clouding my judgement."

"I must be hallucinating."

"We haven't time for histrionics, Doctor."

"But by that logic," McCoy said, just to savor the moment, "if your Vulcan judgement is clouded, than my mere human emotions should be making me positively hysterical."

"Indeed," Spock said, "as is apparent in your current behavior." McCoy could swear he smirked. "Now, I propose that we dress for dinner and interrogate the master of the house."

"Dress in what?"

Spock crossed the room to a wardrobe and opened it to reveal several suits of clothing and shoes. "I have an identical one in my own room," he said.

McCoy inspected them, puffy sleeves and cravats and waistcoats. Fussy, stuffy, nonsense. They smelled a little musty.

"At least they're dry," he said, and began to toe off his boots when he noticed Spock standing there watching him. "You mind?"  
_____

An hour later the house rang with the deep clang of what must have been a clock downstairs.

"Lord, how do you sleep through that?" McCoy wondered as he stepped out of his room and into the hall to find Spock doing the same, looking sharp in his coat and cravat, hair dry and perfect again. He was just about to do something foolish like tell Spock just how good he looked when something touched his shoulder.

"This way, gentlemen," the housekeeper said, face unnaturally pale, and walked out ahead toward the stairs.

"She gives me the creeps," McCoy whispered to Spock and adjusted his own cravat which suddenly seemed too tight.

"The creeps, Doctor? Is that a medical term?"

"Well if you prefer, Mr. Spock, she gives me the heebie-jeebies."

The dining room had even larger gilded frames and even more fine looking painted horses, but just as shabby and dusty as their bedrooms. The chandelier was missing some crystal and featured several impressive cobwebs, the rug had a tear that McCoy nearly tripped over, and the sideboards were thick with dust. In the center of the room, a long table that could have sat nearly twenty was set for only three; two at one end, one on the other far end, where the master of the house stood awaiting them. To McCoy's surprise, they knew him.

"Jim!" McCoy said and rushed to Jim's side, but Jim took a step back and looked down his nose, straightened his moth-eaten coat, complete with gold braids and epaulets, rank and honors.

"Excuse me, sir, are we acquainted?" Jim said, with no trace of recognition.

"It's me, Jim! McCoy! And Spock!" McCoy grabbed Spock by the arm and tried to pull him closer but Spock resisted.

Jim furrowed his brow and spoke sternly. "I'm aware of your names but we have never met. I am Admiral Tiberius Kirk, and you will address me appropriately.

McCoy gaped. "Help me out here, Spock."

Spock stepped forward at last and bowed at the waist. "How do you do, Admiral. We appreciate your hospitality, however, may I inquire how it is that you know our names?"

"But he's not--" McCoy sputtered but Spock held up a hand. McCoy could feel his face go red.

"Please, Doctor, the Admiral is speaking."

Jim look gratified by McCoy's silence and Spock's respectful tone. "Why, your Captain, of course. He… materialized, or whatever sort of nonsense you spacemen get up to, and we had a lovely chat."

"And will the Captain be joining us for dinner?" McCoy asked petulantly.

"No, he's long gone by now. I wonder that you did not pass him on the hills. Likely the rain obscured your sight, I'm sure."

"Well something's certainly obscuring my sight."

"Doctor," Spock said, a reproach, and touched his arm.

Jim ignored it. "Dinner, gentlemen?"

They took their places and were soon served several courses of bland soups and breads and little else. McCoy tried to whisper to Spock as they were certainly far enough away from Jim--from Tiberius!--to be heard, but Spock quieted him each time, or Tiberius admonished him for his rude behavior, and McCoy just angrily sipped his tepid broth as Spock and Tiberius discussed ancient naval battles that McCoy wasn't even sure existed.

After dinner, as they sipped brandy by a fireplace, McCoy tried again to reach Jim or to speak to Spock, only to be rebuffed at each attempt. He settled sullenly into a high-backed chair, thinking that perhaps if he stopped pacing he would no longer feel that the eyes in the paintings were watching him, and picked up a book nearby. It was von Goethe's _Faust_. He definitely wasn't reading _that_ tonight, even if it hadn't been in German.

"Now, gentlemen," Tiberius said just as McCoy was beginning to doze, "I must bid you goodnight. But first I ask you not to wander too freely about the house. Please keep to your quarters or these first floor rooms. It is an old house, and not altogether welcoming to outsiders."

"What the hell does that mean?" McCoy asked, but Spock only nodded and bowed and probably rolled his eyes somewhere behind those second eyelids.  
____

"But that's Jim Kirk!" McCoy said in Spock's quarters, having followed hot on Spock's heels after dinner.

"It is."

"So why did you let him get away with that charade?"

Spock crossed his arms. "It is obvious that the Captain has had his mind altered in some way, by design or chance, to believe that he is this Admiral Tiberius. Refuting his belief would have given us no further answers relating to his condition."

"But going along with it only reinforces the delusion, if that's what it is."

"Do you suggest that the Captain has had some injury which has rendered him a deluded amnesiac? Perhaps bringing forward the studied personality of some long-dead relative, this Tiberius Kirk?"

"It's possible, sure."

"Then why, Doctor, did the housekeeper act as if Jim was the rightful master of this house?"

McCoy frowned. Spock had a point. He scratched at his chin. "I don't know, maybe it wasn't an injury but something more intentional. Maybe she's in on it."

"To what end?"

"Dammit, I don't know, Spock! I'm just trying to figure this out."

Spock nodded, seeming satisfied that he had sufficiently annoyed McCoy. He reached up and began loosening his cravat. "I propose that you rest, Doctor. I shall run further scans with the tricorder. I am not certain why Jim's life signature was not detected in the house."

"You're not walking around this place alone, Spock."

"I agree that we should not split up, therefore I will conduct all scans from my room for now," Spock said, to McCoy's relief, just as that clock struck again. The house shook from the force of it. Spock had begun unbuttoning his shirt, the green flesh flushed from the brandy.

Spock's fingers paused. McCoy looked up to find one arched brow questioning him. 

"Do you mind, Doctor?"  
____

Every hour the house shook and boomed with the clang of that great clock and every hour McCoy would have woken if he'd been asleep. He had convinced himself that it was worry for Jim which kept him awake in spite of that plush feather mattress and the warm, if slightly smelly, blankets. In truth, it was the house. The windows rattled with the wind and the boards creaked and the dying fire threw flickering shadows over every strange surface. He was too old for such nonsense, he knew, but there it was in the pit of his belly, spreading out to his limbs cold and prickly, so that he pulled his covers up just a little higher over his face: dread.

The clock had just struck one when fatigue finally began to overcome him, so that he did not at first notice the subtle scratching at the door. The knock that followed, however, he heard loud and clear.

"Spock?" he whispered and sat up in bed, but the noise had not come from the adjoining door, but from the main door, and Spock gave no answer.

It came again. A slow _thud-thud-thud_ that sent his heart racing. He was being ridiculous, he knew, and to prove it to himself he threw back the covers and stepped out of bed, bare feet on cold floor and damp rugs, his dressing gown tickling at his ankles. He crossed the room to the door but there was no other knocking and when he reached it he threw it open quickly before he lost his nerve.

Nothing. No one. Just a dark hall in one direction and a pale-lit landing in the other. He closed the door, shook his head, feeling once again foolish, but in that instant, his hand still on the knob, the knocking came again, a louder, angrier, _THUD, THUD, THUD, THUD_ in rapid succession. He backed away quickly, eyes wide and wild, the noise blocking out all other sound.

Without any real thought except to escape it, he turned and headed for the adjoining door. He didn't knock or call for Spock, just barrelled through and into the other room, and closed the door securely behind him.

He panted, leaning against the door. The knocking had stopped.

"Doctor?" Spock said. McCoy could see him by the light of the dying fire, sitting up in bed.

"Shift over, Mr. Spock, we're bunking together tonight."

McCoy climbed into the bed before Spock could argue against it.

"Is there a problem with your lodgings, Doctor?"

"Didn't you hear that racket? All that banging?" 

"The clock?"

"No, the knocking on the door. You couldn't have missed it, not with those big ears."

Spock sighed. He was bare-chested and McCoy didn't know bare-what-else, since the blankets covered the rest of him. His hair was only a little out of place.

"I heard nothing."

McCoy frowned. "Well I'd call you a liar but I know what you'd say to that!"

"Is it possible that the noises you heard were of a… supernatural nature?"

"I don't find that funny at all, Mr. Spock!"

"I was not endeavouring to be comical, Doctor."

McCoy raised a hand and a pointed finger and was about to say something that started with _Now listen here, you pointy-eared so-and-so_ but before he could, the knocking came again at Spock's door. Both of them turned to face the sound.

McCoy's mouth went dry even as his heart raced. "You heard that, right?"

"Affirmative."

The knock came again. The same slow, _thud, thud, thud_.

"Did you happen to answer your door when the phenomenon occurred in your room?" Spock asked.

"Yeah, and nothing was there." McCoy had a strange and sudden urge to reach for Spock's hand, but that was taking it too far. 

When the knock sounded again it was louder and faster and Spock stood out of bed, wearing loose-fitting pants afterall. He stepped to the door and opened it.

Again there was nothing, but Spock did not close the door, only stood back and waited. Waited. The room slowly grew colder as the fire dimmed. 

"Spock…" McCoy whispered, and then the fire flared bright, high enough to singe the cloth hanging over the mantle. McCoy covered his face in the sudden heat, and when he looked again the fire was low but standing there in the flickering light of it was a figure. 

"Captain…" Spock said from his place across the room, looking suitably gobsmacked for a Vulcan. 

McCoy could not believe it but Spock was right. It was hard to see, transparent as the figure was in the dying light, but it was Jim. 

Jim stood still at first, then took a step and another, looking around as if he was lost. He did not seem to see either of them and he made no sound when his mouth opened.

"What's the matter with him, Spock?"

"I do not know, Doctor," Spock said, and moved to retrieve his tricorder. It hummed and whirred as Spock scanned the spectre, but the movement or the noise or something else seemed to agitate Jim. He began swinging his arms wildly, madly. Throughout the room objects began to shake, a crystal decanter rattled and the bed rocked in its frame beneath McCoy as the fire sputtered and spat. 

"Careful, Spock," McCoy called, but Spock had thought only for his Captain, certainly not his own safety. He stepped closer with the scanner, too close, and one of Jim's flailing arms struck him, actually made contact and threw him across the room.

McCoy jumped out of bed and ran to Spock's side, found him against the far wall, half sprawled over the rug. "You fool, I told you to be careful!"

Spock blinked several times, eyes trying to focus. He must have hit his head pretty hard. 

"Stay there, don't move an inch," McCoy said and ran to the adjacent room to fetch his medkit, to be sure that Spock's neck or spine hadn't been damaged. It wasn't until he returned to Spock's room that he remembered he was supposed to be afraid for any reason besides an injured crewman, but Jim was gone and the room was quiet now except for the crackle of the fire and the creek of the boards beneath their feet.

Spock was not seriously injured but McCoy got him into bed anyway, brought him water and frowned when Spock was too busy reading the analysis on the tricorder to drink it.

"I am well, Doctor. The Captain, however, appears to be a ghost."

"Pardon me, Mr. Spock," McCoy said, sitting on Spock's bedside, "but I thought I just heard you say that Jim's a ghost."

"That is correct."

"But that would mean he's dead! And I'm just not willing to accept that. We saw his body downstairs!"

"I do not believe the Captain is a ghost in the traditional sense, but he is certainly disembodied."

"Well how do we… _embody_ him again?"

Spock frowned down at the tricorder, his face aglow with the light from its screen, his hair very much a mess now. After a moment, he turned it off and set it on the bedside table. He sighed.

"I do not know at this time."

McCoy felt a pang for him. He knew that Spock would figure this out--he always did where Jim was concerned. But he also knew how much Spock didn't like not having all the answers.

For reasons he couldn't possibly or was unwilling to name, he reached forward and smoothed down Spock's hair. Spock looked at him with one raised brow until McCoy slid off of the bed and moved around to the other side and climbed in under the covers.

Spock still looked at him.

"You're the one who said we shouldn't split up, Mr. Spock," McCoy said, and pulled the blankets up to his chin.

Later, after the fire had burned out utterly and yet they both still lay awake, McCoy asked if Spock believed that ghosts could really exist.

"I mean traditionally speaking," McCoy said, "not just disembodied starship captains, but the spirits of the dead?"

There was a shift in the dark, of sheets and, McCoy imagined, eyebrows. "Since energy can neither be created nor destroyed, it is logical that a human or other entity, bodies operated in part by electrical impulses, may therefore be transferred into another form of energy upon their death. However, there is nothing to suggest that such an entity would be any more or less malevolent than when they were alive."

"But you saw Jim; that wasn't like him at all. He was frightened, panicked."

"Perhaps death or the state of disembodiment invites madness."

McCoy swallowed, loud in the dark.

"Let's hope it's not permanent," he said.  
_____

In the morning, Spock was already dressed when McCoy woke and McCoy didn't think very hard about that. He also wasn't disappointed that Spock was back in his uniform.

McCoy dressed the same in his own room, though his boots were still soggy so he slipped on the tall boots he'd worn to dinner the night before. 

They crept down to breakfast to find food and cold coffee but no housekeeper or master, not in the dining room, or the parlor where they'd had brandy the night before, nor anywhere else that they looked. 

"There isn't hide nor hair of anyone, Mr. Spock. What do you make of it?"

The tricorder whirred in Spock's hand. "I find no life signature in the house save our own, Doctor. However, the same was true last night."

McCoy moved to look over his shoulder. "Not even Jim's?"

"Not even the housekeeper or Tiberius."

"What's that mean? That's got to mean something, right?"

"It simply means that they have either vacated the house, which was unlikely in the storm, or that whatever type of energy constitutes their life signatures, it is not detectable by our equipment."

McCoy frowned. "That's very helpful, Spock."

"I am pleased that you think so," Spock said, and switched off the tricorder. "I suggest that we investigate the house while we are alone."

"But if their life signatures don't show up, how do you know we are alone in the house?"

"I cannot be certain, Doctor, however, I believe that we will not be disturbed during the daylight."

McCoy didn't ask what he meant by that, he certainly didn't mention vampires.

They started on the first floor, having already checked most of those rooms. They found a library with an impressive collection of gothic horror and an equally impressive rat infestation. In the ballroom the floors gleamed beneath the sunshine from high windows but when they stepped inside they found that it was not wax that sparkled on the floor but water, and at the foot of each window the walls were wet and black with mold, so that McCoy hurried them on to the next room.

On the second storey they skipped their own rooms, having already been in those, and checked each guest room in turn. Most looked very similar if less well appointed and mustier and damper. They went through drawers and wardrobes and Spock scanned for places in the walls that might have hidden compartments or passageways. Farthest from their rooms, the hall grew dark where no lamps burned and the damp smell grew worse. Spock pulled out a small penlight and they pressed on, guided through the dark by a narrow beam shining on faces in paintings and carved figureheads on furniture. Spock stopped at a door and McCoy crashed into him. He hadn't realized he was following so closely. He stepped back and apologized but Spock didn't seem to notice.

"This door is locked," Spock said. 

"Maybe someone's in there," McCoy suggested.

"Why are you whispering, Doctor?"

"The question is, Mr. Spock, why aren't you?"

Spock dismissed him with a slow blink and a raised brow that McCoy recognized as a Vulcan eyeroll and pulled something out of the tricorder pouch. He handed the penlight to McCoy and began picking the lock.

"I didn't know they taught lock-picking at the VSA," McCoy goaded, whispering close to Spock's ear as he shined the light on the knob.

"I would think there are many things you do not know about Vulcans."

"And you know all about humans, I suppose?"

"That assertion was in no way implied by my statement."

There was a click and the door popped open.

"Every statement you make implies your superiority to humans, Spock."

"Perhaps it is merely a sense of inferiority that causes you to think so."

A cold breeze blew from the dark room, damp and old-smelling but McCoy was too wound up to worry about anything that wasn't an irritating, supercilious Vulcan.

"Inferiority? To you? Need I remind you who reconnected your _brain_ after you went and got it _removed_ from that thick skull?"

They stepped into the room, too black still to see and the penlight was no help.

"As I recall it was not your skill which enabled you to do so, Doctor, but that of the--"

The door slammed behind them, cutting Spock off mid-sentence, and they stood in the utter and complete darkness.

"Great," McCoy said, trying to shine the light but it wasn't strong enough. The darkness seemed opaque. The breeze they had felt when the door first opened still blew past them, as if a fan were on or a window was open but there was no sound.

"Doctor, there is something unnatural about this room."

"You're telling me," McCoy said quietly, as if speaking too loudly would disturb… something.

A light appeared suddenly so that McCoy jumped, but it was only the tricorder screen, lighting Spock's face an eerier-than-usual green.

"Anything?"

"Nothing."

"What do you mean, nothing, Spock?"

"It is a word which should have a clear meaning even for you, Doctor. There is nothing in the space we are currently occupying except for ourselves and the equipment."

"But there's a floor," McCoy said, moving his foot, but in fact there was no sound, no thud against wood or rug and below his boot the ground felt oddly soft.

There was a shuffle.

"Was that you, Spock?"

"Negative, Doctor. I remain perfectly still."

Another shuffle, then a sliding sound, like something very large being dragged along a floor. McCoy shone the light, but the darkness was just as empty.

"I suggest we retire from this room immediately," Spock said in an overly neutral tone.

"I've never agreed with you more."

McCoy turned on his heel, a complete one-eighty so as not to lose his bearings, and reached out a hand where the doorknob should have been directly behind him, but encountered only air. 

"I can't find the door."

"Nor I," Spock said, sounding farther away.

"Spock, get back over here!" McCoy hissed loudly and the sliding sound came again, and a click-click-click, and a thump.

"Dammit, Spock!"

Something touched his hand.

"It is me, Doctor," Spock said when McCoy tried to pull away. "Perhaps we should maintain physical contact until we find our way out."

McCoy nodded gratefully, even though Spock couldn't see him. "Which way?"

"Logically, if we head in one direction for long enough--"

 _Slide, click-click-click, thump_ , came the sound, closer, on their heels it seemed.

"--we should reach a wall, and then feel our way around to the door."

"Whatever you say, let's just get moving!" McCoy took the first step, his heart thumping like whatever was slithering and clicking around them. The floor was still oddly soft and their footsteps soundless. He clutched Spock's hand and Spock, for all his superiority, clutched back. They took small steps at first, then longer, quicker. At least the sound of the slide and click was fading behind them.

"This isn't right," McCoy said. "We must have walked the length of two rooms by now."

"Agreed."

Still, they had no other choice and no direction from the tricorder or help from the light.The cold wind blew in their faces and the smell of something ancient was growing stronger.

"I don't think I can take much more of this, Spock."

"Courage, Doctor," Spock said, and squeezed his hand.

"It's not my courage I'm worried about, it's my heart."

"I am knowledgeable of human first aid, should it be required."

"You mean if you can even see me in this--"

"Quiet, please Doctor," Spock said, and stopped walking, so that he was a little behind McCoy when they stood still in the darkness, their arms stretched out in the black holding hands, and somehow that felt so much more vulnerable.

McCoy wanted to ask what they were meant to be listening for but then he heard it, almost imperceptible, but probably loud as elephants to a Vulcan. It was a quiet patter, like tiny feet padding over a floor, like Joanna in her Sunday shoes, tapping on the tiles in the kitchen, but distantly behind them, then suddenly to the left and much nearer, then total, almost deafening silence.

It stretched. McCoy counted to sixty.

"Spock?" he said.

A hot, rancid wind, like a gust from a funeral pyre blew suddenly and forcefully from out ahead of them. A deep, loud rumble that he felt in his bones and a high, keening screech came with it and on instinct McCoy turned, back the way they'd come, pulling Spock with him and, for once, Spock allowed himself to be pulled, but McCoy took only two steps before colliding with a solid object. A wall! And at his waist, a door knob! He turned it and light flooded in, the darkness sucking it up like a vacuum and out they tumbled, back into the hallway where they had stood arguing. About what? How long ago? McCoy didn't know. 

The door slammed shut, narrowly missing Spock's feet, and they panted together in the dim hallway that now seemed brightly lit by comparison. Spock looked up and over at him. They were still holding hands.

"No more lock-picking, Mr. Spock."  
______

By the afternoon they had searched as much of the house as they could without unlocking any more doors, and it had been (of course, McCoy thought, it had to be) the attic which had finally given them any actual clues. McCoy had climbed that narrow staircase reluctantly, but armed this time with an oil lamp and a phaser on his hip he felt a little more confident. Spock seemed unperturbed by the cobwebs or the dark shadows or the figures shrouded in white sheets to keep off the dust. 

There were no strange sounds up there and no smells other than an old house, and though the air was close it was dry. After a few minutes of fumbling in the half-dark, Spock found a window and uncovered it. Light from an overcast sky poured in like a blessing.

McCoy kept the lamp burning all the same.

Spock almost immediately found a painting of the Admiral, covered by a dusty white sheet. He looked tall and proud in his uniform, depicted on the deck of a ship, the sea churning wildly behind him. He also looked exactly like Jim. The name on a gold plate at the bottom of the frame even read _Admiral Tiberius J. Kirk_.

"But this painting has to be hundreds of years old," McCoy said. "Could it be some past relative of Jim's?" 

"Perhaps, or perhaps there is another explanation. You said last night that we had been fooled before by places and things which seemed to be of another time or place. Perhaps it is illusion, mental suggestion. It should not be difficult for an entity which has performed the kind of mind-body transference that Tiberius has mastered."

McCoy studied a stack of papers, blowing dust from them that plumed in the grey sunlight. "You talk about this like it's really possible, commonplace even."

Spock uncovered a large object which turned out to be a desk. "It is possible, Doctor, that much is evident, and while mind-body transference is not common practice, more… challenging feats are often performed on Vulcan."

McCoy rolled his eyes. When he looked again to the papers, a name and a date caught his eye. 

"Spock, I think I found something," he said.

"I believe I have as well, Doctor."

What McCoy found was a death certificate, for one Mr. T. Kirk, who was lost at sea and declared dead more than four hundred years before, though no body had been recovered. What Spock found was a small book bound in leather, and in gold lettering on the cover read the title: _Handbook for the Recently Deceased_. 

"That's ridiculous," McCoy said, but Spock was already engrossed in its pages. Over his shoulder, McCoy read a few paragraphs but it might as well have been written in Vulcan. "That thing reads like warp drive schematics," he said, and Spock just hummed an affirmative.

Spock was little help after that. He planted himself on a dusty old sofa while McCoy sifted through boxes of photographs and birth records and hand-me-down underthings and old Christmas ornaments until the hour grew late and his stomach growled. 

"I think it's time we dress for dinner, Spock," he said. 

"Yes, Doctor," Spock said, and hardly lifted his nose from between those pages all the way back down to their rooms.  
_____

Like the evening before, when the hour for dinner struck, they stepped out of their rooms to be greeted by Mrs. Heebie-Jeebie, that is, the housekeeper, only this time McCoy thought she looked thinner, bonier, and in some way, almost transparent. He tried to ask after her health, but again she had nothing to say that wasn't entirely necessary, and he was beginning to wonder if she was a recorded hologram, in spite of witnessing her holding keys and opening doors. 

In the dining room, just before she left, Spock stumbled on the rug and bumped into her. The sound when they collided was a hollow rattle, like a sack full of bones and marbles.

"Excuse me, madam," Spock said, and she glared at him like a threat.

"You did that on purpose," McCoy whispered when she'd gone.

"No doubt you had the same suspicions of her origin. I find it curious that she is both solid and yet not, as I am certain that I once observed the staircase through her person."

"Gentlemen," their host interrupted from the far side of the room. They had not before noticed him. "More unseemly whispering? I thought we had done away with the need for secrecy. You've certainly seen enough of my house to have very few questions now."

Tiberius's tone was chilly, but with a sheen of civility that rankled McCoy even more than open anger would have.

"Actually, Admiral Kirk, we've got a lot of questions!" McCoy barked but Spock cleared his throat and he shut his mouth tight.

"Pardon us, Admiral," Spock said, "the Doctor misspoke. We have satisfied our curiosity and beg your pardon for any inconvenience. We were only looking for our friend, the Captain, but we are certain now that he has gone."

"I told you as much yesterday," Tiberius said, his voice low but booming like that great clock as the china shook with it and the lights seemed to dim and flicker. "Are you calling me a liar, Mr. Spock?"

"Negative, Admiral," Spock said, impressively calm. "However, you must understand as a fellow navy man, the power of curiosity, the… thrill of exploration."

A teacup rattled to a tinny stop and the lights slowly returned to normal. Tiberius smiled. So much colder than Jim. "Yes, of course," he said, and then the housekeeper entered to serve their dinner. Truthfully, McCoy would have said that she appeared out of thin air, but that would have been pushing it.

"I hope your rooms suited you," Tiberius said after they were seated. "Better than a hammock strung belowdecks, surely."

"Certainly," Spock said, motioning for McCoy to agree and McCoy managed a grunt of approval and a nod of his head. He was prepared to eat his tepid meal in sullen peace when Tiberius spoke again.

"It is important to me that your stay here be comfortable," he said with a grin which was so much more smug than when Jim made the same face. "Perhaps I should not have expected to earn your trust so soon. After all, there will be plenty of time for that."

"What do you mean?" McCoy asked, and Spock touched his hand, but he pressed on. "Exactly how long do you expect us to stay?"

Tiberius lifted his wine glass and considered McCoy through its contents, one eye gleaming red behind it. He grinned wickedly. "Why, certainly by now, Doctor, you've realized that you shall never leave this planet."  
______

The floorboards creaked with every step McCoy took back and forth across Spock's room. The eyes of the paintings were watching him but he was too agitated to care.

"Dammit, Spock, how can you be so calm?"

Spock did not look up from where he fiddled with his communicator, sitting at a writing desk with it partially disassembled. 

"If simply pacing the room would solve our predicament, then I would gladly join you, Doctor."

McCoy huffed, made a fist, turned on his heel. He wasn't angry at Spock, only at the situation, but that never stopped him from lashing out.

"Well what in blazes _are_ you doing, then?" he growled, and finally stopped pacing to look over Spock's shoulder where Spock's fine hands manipulated delicate parts.

"Using the information I have gathered from the Handbook, I am attempting to alter this communicator to receive a wider range of frequencies."

"To reach the ship?"

"To reach Captain Kirk. I believe his spectre shall return tonight, and he may have the answers we seek."

McCoy nodded even if Spock wasn't looking at him. He certainly couldn't argue that it was a waste of time, but he also knew how much Spock cared for and relied on Jim. They both did, really, the whole ship even. He felt suddenly ashamed for reacting so harshly.

"Is there anything I can do to help, Mr. Spock?" he asked, and reached out to lay a hand on Spock's shoulder. Spock paused and turned his head just slightly toward McCoy, dark eyes dancing in the firelight as the clock on the mantle ticked away the time. McCoy slid his hand away.

"Thank you, Doctor, no. Except--"

"To leave you alone?"

"On the contrary, I would ask you to stay, however, perhaps on one side of the room or the other. I do not have a preference."  
____

The evening passed quickly, the great clock striking ten, eleven, midnight, as McCoy sat on the bed, trying to read that Handbook, squinting in the lamplight and more often watching Spock at the desk. The communicator was back together and Spock was adjusting dials and listening to the speaker up close against his ear, though McCoy never heard it make a sound. 

As the clock struck one the house shook and then creaked and settled. McCoy found himself nodding off, darkness behind his eyes, the lull of sleep so forgetful, and his chin dropped to his chest, but he quickly raised his head and opened his eyes to the room lit by a dying fire and Spock at the desk. He blinked sleepily, knowing he should be prepared for Jim's visit but his eyelids drooped again. Darkness, a moment of rest, then light and Spock. Darkness, light, Spock. Darkness, light. Darkness. Darkness.

_Thud-thud-thud-thud!_

McCoy's eyes shot open. This was not the slow knock from the night before but panicked banging, faster, more desperate, furniture and glassware rattling, and Spock was already standing to open the door. McCoy found his heart racing in spite of knowing that it was just Jim. Just his disembodied, ghostly, and possibly mad best friend.

Or would it be? Anything could come through that door this time; it didn't have to be Jim. It didn't even have to be human. Or… the ghost of a human.

"Spock…" McCoy said, but a shape was already appearing, and to his relief it was Jim, even more transparent than the night before, even more lost as he stood near Spock, flailing his arms, reaching for anything, mouth moving soundlessly.

Spock was turning dials on the communicator, looking down and Jim was getting closer. Something was wrong.

McCoy slid off of the bed.

"Stay there, Doctor," Spock said, and at last, McCoy heard the faintest whisper from the communicator.

"--anyone hear me? Anyone?" it said, barely audible, but the voice was unmistakable. It was Jim.

"I hear you, Captain," Spock said.

The ghost of Jim--what else could he call it?--stopped flailing and seemed to calm, though he still looked around him as if blind. He could hear but not see the world around him.

"Spock?"

"Yes, Captain. I am here," Spock said, and McCoy thought his heart would break from the relief and affection he heard in Spock's voice. He sat back on the bed.

"Spock, where are we? Where… am I?" Jim said, voice raspy and staticky as he still staggered forward toward Spock's voice.

"We are currently on an uncharted planet. You came down for first contact alone. Do you remember?"

"I… I think so. The Admiral?"

"Yes, Captain. The Admiral has taken your body. Do you remember the circumstances in which he was able to do so?"

Jim took another step forward, reached out his hand as if reaching into the darkness, too close to Spock now for McCoy's comfort, remembering the blow Spock took the night before.

"Spock, be careful!" McCoy called out, but this time Jim's hand simply passed through Spock, without so much as disturbing the frills on his shirt. Then Jim turned his head as if listening to something else, and his face lit up slightly, the smallest smile on it.

"Bones? Is that you?"

"I'm here, Jim," McCoy said, sliding off the bed to stand a little nearer.

"It's good to hear you both," Jim said, so softly, and hung his head, as if the relief was too much to bear. He staggered.

"Jim! Are you alright?" McCoy asked, but Jim couldn't answer, head still hanging low. "There's something wrong with him, Spock.

"He is weakened."

"From communicating?"

"I do not believe so," Spock said, and then, "Whatever happens, Doctor, please do not interfere."

Spock took a step toward Jim.

"Captain, if you will permit it," Spock said, "I shall join our life forces. I do not believe that you can sustain this form much longer on your own."

Jim didn't respond, only slumped to the ground.

"Just do it, Spock!" McCoy shouted and Spock stepped forward and knelt next to Jim, reaching out. 

McCoy expected a bright light or some sort of sound, but there was only Spock and Jim one moment, and just Spock the next. 

Spock straightened, his expression strangely pained, confused, then blank. He didn't look any different except for his eyes which were a lighter brown, a hint of green. Few people would have noticed the change, but McCoy was particularly acquainted with Spock's dark, softly human eyes.

Spock blinked.

"The Captain is safe, Doctor."

McCoy let out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding and felt an almost irresistible urge to hug Spock, Jim… Spock-Jim.

"Additionally," Spock continued, "I now believe that I know the way to re-join the Captain with his body." He took a step, swayed a little, and McCoy caught him by the arm to walk him over to the desk chair.

"Are you alright?"

"I am well, only a slight adjustment period," Spock said, and smiled softly, looking oddly like Jim.

"Well how did you come by this procedure? From joining with Jim?"

"From the handbook. There are several descriptions of possession, body sharing or transference. By joining with the Captain I learned the particulars of his possession which I recognize from my reading."

He stood, this time without swaying, and fetched the book. He flipped to a page and showed McCoy.

"Serpent eggs and the charred bone of an unborn child? Are you kidding me?"

"Many of the ingredients are ceremonial and my telepathy renders them unnecessary anyway. There is, however, one object which we will require," Spock said with one raised brow, looking more mischievous than McCoy had ever seen.

"What's that?"

Spock smirked pretty well for a Vulcan. "You're not gonna like it, Bones."  
___

The moon hung huge and ominous, even fuller than the night before, and yet the night still seemed too dark around them, with the sucking noise of their boots in the mud and the high grass on the hillside whispering beneath the blades of the shovels they had found in a gardening shed, which had been its own kind of nightmare. 

At least it wasn't raining.

"Of all the tomfool notions," McCoy grumbled, following Spock up the hill toward the cemetery, holding his lantern high to see past its glare. 

"We require an article in which the deceased was buried," Spock repeated, as if McCoy simply needed reminding to see the sense in it.

"But he wasn't buried; he was lost at sea! You saw the death certificate."

"A death certificate which was clearly falsified, conjured for our benefit. At any rate, the body must be nearby; it is one condition of a haunting."

McCoy shuddered. He could swear he heard a rustle in the bushes. "I wish you wouldn't use that word, Mr. Spock."

"A revision of semantics will not change the situation, Doctor."

McCoy rolled his eyes and they continued walking in silence. The path up the hill seemed longer tonight and steeper and he used the shovel as a walking stick. At last, at the top, they found the cemetery. 

"What name are we looking for? Kirk?" McCoy asked, bending to each headstone with the lantern.

"Unknown," Spock said, then, "We'll know it when we find it," sounding more like Jim.

As they searched, McCoy began to notice a pattern. "These dates up front are recent. The stones are newer. They get older as they move back."

"He will likely be found in the oldest grave, then."

In the far rear of the cemetery they found an old tree, gnarled and bare of leaves or fruit or any life at all. Sitting crooked among its roots was a small, plain headstone, almost entirely hidden, grown over with moss and half buried in dirt.

 _Lieutenant John R. Sumner_ , the inscription read, almost too worn to read.

"Who's that?" McCoy asked.

"I think it is our host."

"You mean he's not even an Admiral?"

"Perhaps that was his aspiration, as it is now his aspiration to live as Tiberius Kirk."

They sat their lanterns aside and started digging, alternating shovelfuls as the wind picked up and clouds moved over the moon. The wet stab of the shovels in the earth and the sucking sound of the blades quickly became a rhythm, interrupted only by the roar of the wind through leaves or the call of an owl. They spoke little and McCoy required breaks more often, but soon they were crowded in the hole, working back to back or shoulder to shoulder, until at last Spock's shovel gave a dull thud against mostly rotted wood. 

The casket lid gave way easily, torn away in Spock's hands, soft after a few hundred years. It had collapsed a long time ago and much of the Lieutenant's clothing had rotted away, but still that face smiled up, bare bone white in the moonlight.

"I'm not sure there's much left of what was buried with him," McCoy said, wiping sweat from his forehead and holding the lamp high, "not without some careful excavating and we don't have the time for that."

Spock rooted through the earth and scattered fibers where the man's chest had once been, then pulled his hand up, rubbed his thumb over a small object, something that glinted gold in the lamplight.

From out in the night there came a noise, a high-pitched cry like a distant dog.

"A medal?" McCoy asked.

"Indeed."

"Well at least he wasn't always a coward."

Spock raised a brow, considering the medal in his hands. "It is perhaps unfair to say that he is now. Afterall, all beings do what they must to survive. Or to continue in some way. Even at the cost of another life, as they have done for millennia."

The howl came again, this time carried on the wind, nearer and louder.

McCoy sighed. "Let's not get philosophical, Mr. Spock. Let's just get out of here."

Spock tucked the medal into his hip pocket then helped McCoy back up to ground level and McCoy gave a hand down to Spock and pulled him up. They hurried down the hill with the lanterns, pushed along by the wind behind them and now and then that animal call that chilled McCoy to the bone. At the bottom of the hill they were slowed by the mud and high grass and McCoy was acutely aware that any predatory animal could easily catch them there. Spock, for all his cool, was aware of it too, as up ahead McCoy watched him pull out his phaser.

They were near the house when the call came closest, loud and high and the shrubbery shook with something more than the wind, but they pressed on, running now in the higher ground until they reached the house. Spock pushed McCoy ahead to enter the house first as he stood on the cobblestones pointing the phaser into the darkness, but the door was jammed and wouldn't open. 

"Put your shoulder into it, Bones!" Spock shouted and it might have been funny if McCoy hadn't been so terrified for Spock out there, exposed.

"I'm trying! I'm a doctor, dammit, not a battering ram!"

In the hedge by the door came an answering growl, too big for a wolf, too big for any canid McCoy had ever seen on any planet, and when he looked over his shoulder he saw a flash of something white and he wasn't even aware that he had stepped in front of Spock until there was a tearing sound and pain across his chest.

Spock pulled at him with one arm, still pointing the phaser with the other, and dragged him stumbling to the door. 

More bothersome to McCoy than the pain in his chest, or the fear of that animal returning, was that when Spock tried the door, it opened easily. 

There was nothing wrong with his legs, and yet Spock half-carried him, one of McCoy's arms slung over his shoulder, up those stairs and into Spock's room. He helped him out of his tattered uniform shirts and arranged him comfortably on the bed, worriedly inspecting the angry red marks across McCoy's bare chest.

"It doesn't seem to be very deep, Spock. There's not even a lot of blood."

"You should not have done that, Leonard," Spock said, almost angrily, and without letting McCoy reply, he asked where McCoy had left his medkit.

McCoy lay there, waiting while Spock went to McCoy's room for his kit, prodded at his own chest which really wasn't so bad. He was more concerned with what exactly that animal had been, since besides a blur of white, he had never seen the beast that attacked them.

He was also rather shamefully concerned with why Spock had called him Leonard, as well as the response he'd had from hearing that name from Spock, who had never called him anything but Doctor. Then again, there was Jim to consider, in residence inside Spock, and yet Jim had not called him that name since the first day of their five year mission.

Spock came back with the kit and sat carefully on the bedside next to McCoy, pulled his hand away when McCoy tried to take the scanner from him, then scanned McCoy's chest as McCoy frowned at him, brown eyes too full of concern for McCoy to be comfortable watching them.

"You were correct, Doctor. Superficial wounds only."

"That's good to know, seeing as I'm the doctor here." He reached for the kit and the tissue regenerator, but Spock pulled it away again. 

"You cannot perform tissue regeneration on yourself. At that angle, it may increase scarring."

"I'm not worried about scarring, Spock, I'm just worried about getting this mission over with and getting off this planet, which will be easier without my chest cut open!"

Spock raised a brow. "Now who is exaggerating your injuries? I shall perform the necessary procedure. Would you like a sedative for the pain?"

McCoy shook his head. "No, I don't wanna be knocked out."

Spock nodded, then raised the regenerator but paused. "I could induce a restful trance. It will last only as long as is necessary and you will wake immediately, without drowsiness."

McCoy narrowed his eyes, considered Spock's face and the offer, which was made matter-of-factly, but McCoy knew that Vulcans didn't share their gifts with just anyone.

He nodded, but as Spock reached toward his face McCoy grabbed his wrist. "Just don't go poking around in there, okay?"

Spock inclined his head slightly and McCoy released him. He closed his eyes as those fingers touched his face and tried hard not to think of Spock in his cravat and coat, or of Spock's fine hand clasped in his, or of Spock at all.

A little while later he opened his eyes. He knew it was only a little while because Spock was just standing from the bedside and his chest was still tingling from the regenerator, still a little damp from where Spock had cleaned away the blood. Spock pulled off McCoy's boots and McCoy was going to argue but let him anyway, then Spock pulled the blankets over him and up to his chin.

Now that his body had rested, it wanted more, and McCoy began to doze as Spock stepped across the room. McCoy could hear the rustle of clothing, the splash of water, and by the time Spock crawled into bed the clock was chiming six and the night outside their window was beginning to lighten. In his fatigue, even that great clang would not have woken him entirely, but Spock's shoulder brushed against his own, accidentally, of course, but the skin to skin contact made him acutely aware that they were shirtless in bed together. He should have moved away enough so that Spock was not touching him and therefore, he had always assumed, could not read his thoughts, but Spock's skin was cool under the warm blankets and goose-pimpled.

"What you said earlier, Spock," McCoy said, because in spite of his heart racing like a teenager's, he was still concerned for Jim, "about the Admiral surviving even at the expense of another life, do you really think Jim's life is in danger? I know he's disembodied but he's still alive."

"According to the handbook, the dead sometimes take from the living that which they desire most: life. They drain them of it, making that life their own in a way. It can be done slowly, over time, so that it is not even noticeable, or it can be done swiftly, if the ghost requires it. I believe that is what is happening to the Captain, and what has happened to all of those buried in that cemetery. I believe it will eventually be our fate." 

"Is that why Jim was weaker tonight?"

There was a noise, a movement of Spock's head against the pillow, so that McCoy risked looking over to meet Spock's dark gaze in the dim, pre-dawn shadows. 

"Even now I feel his katra weaken."

McCoy swallowed, mouth dry, and reached out a hand beneath the blankets to offer it to Spock. To his surprise, Spock took it, laced their fingers together and held tight, like when they had stumbled through that impenetrable dark and had not wanted to lose each other.

"Hold on, okay?" McCoy said and Spock nodded, though McCoy was not sure if he was speaking to Spock or to Jim. It didn't matter. He meant it for both. If they were going to stumble through the dark, they were going to do it together.  
______

"So how's this work, Mr. Spock?" McCoy asked in the sobering light of day that afternoon. They had slept most of the morning, or at least McCoy had, and he had woken alone in the bed but not in the room, as Spock sat again at the desk, studying the handbook.

Spock lifted a brow haughtily, his best explain-it-to-the-human face, so that one would have never suspected that this same creature had been a worried caretaker the night before.

"The procedure is simple," he said, turned to face McCoy who was not exactly pacing. Not really. "First, it requires proximity."

"So we get close to him, but we've only ever seen him at dinner or after."

"Precisely. We should make our move tonight, before…"

Before Jim's time runs out, he did not say. McCoy pressed on so he wouldn't have to.

"What do you do once you're close to him?"

"I shall expel the ghost of the Admiral."

"Like an exorcism?"

"Nothing so provincial, Doctor. Using my telepathic abilities and aided by the medal we procured, which should act as a kind of supernatural scanner, I shall identify, isolate, and force out the Admiral's consciousness."

McCoy crossed his arms and smirked. "So exactly like an exorcism, then?"

Spock sighed and continued. "Then all that is left is to transfer the Captain back into his rightful body."

"Well that doesn't sound too difficult, really."

"On the contrary, getting close the Admiral may prove a delicate matter, as he may be suspicious of our intentions."

McCoy sat on the bed, all levity suddenly draining from him. "Why do you think that?"

"The animal which attacked you last night, I believe it was the same life force that resides in the Admiral, the same which is draining the Captain. Perhaps even the housekeeper."

"That would explain why I never actually saw the creature, and why the housekeeper was almost transparent."

"Indeed, Doctor. Additionally, I do not know what will happen once the Admiral has been expelled from the Captain's body. It is possible that he will attempt to find a new host."

The clock chose that moment to strike, shaking the walls and floors, adding an ominous punctuation to Spock's statement. 

"This house certainly likes being dramatic," McCoy said.  
___

They stuck to their rooms the rest of the day, agreeing that it was too dangerous to risk another encounter or certainly to split up, although McCoy's conviction on this wavered the louder his stomach growled. Spock sat in the chair mostly, and meditated, preparing himself for the mental challenge of swapping minds out of bodies or conversing internally with Jim or something else, McCoy did not know. But McCoy watched him often and wondered. 

He wondered about many things that afternoon.

In the evening they dressed in their dinner clothes and McCoy helped to straighten Spock's cravat and Spock let him. When the clock struck six they stepped into the hall but the housekeeper was not there.

"Maybe she's invisible now?" McCoy suggested and Spock shrugged with his brows more than his shoulders. McCoy had not seen or heard much of Jim in him since the night before, and it was beginning to worry him.

The house seemed unusually quiet without Mrs. Heebie-Jeebie clanging about with those keys on her hip as they descended the stairs and crossed the great hall. McCoy tied not to think of it is an ill portent.

In the dining room, like both nights before, they found Admiral Tiberius and Jim's body waiting for them, but unlike those dinners, the table was now extravagantly set, twenty silver place settings gleaming, and instead of lukewarm, grey soup and stale bread there was a banquet, roast chicken and puddings with funny names and brightly colored vegetables that honestly derailed McCoy's thinking for a moment. It had been twenty-four hours since his last meal and he wasn't a Vulcan.

"Good evening, Gentlemen," Tiberius said from where he sat at the far end of the table. "I would invite you to sit, but I don't dine with traitors."

McCoy's palms began to sweat.

"What are you talking about?" he asked, since he knew Spock wouldn't lie about it.

"Don't play coy with me, Doctor. This is my house, I hear everything." He smiled with Kirk's lips but too wide, too manic. "You think I don't know what the Commander has in his coat pocket?"

The lights began to flicker, china to rattle. Then Spock was pulled across the room, as if on a string tied to his middle. He fought it, McCoy could tell, or at least he made an appearance of fighting it, since McCoy knew that Spock needed to be close to Tiberius.

"Don't do this, you monster!" McCoy shouted over the noise of the dishes even as a cup lifted up and crashed against the wall near his head. Tiberius laughed and Spock's feet dragged along the rug until he stood in front of the Admiral and Tiberius reached into Spock's jacket pocket and pulled out the medal.

This was not going according to plan, McCoy thought, even as a roast chicken flew by, flapping its wings. When he looked again, Tiberius had Spock gripped by the throat. 

McCoy pulled out his phaser and tried to cross the room but he was thrown back against the wall. The phaser went off in his hand, aimed wildly but it didn't matter. The energy blast only dissipated into nothing, creating a static quality to the air and little more. It was useless.

"Stay away, Doctor," Spock gritted out.

"Yes, listen to your Commander, Doctor."

"Let him go! We only wanted to find our Captain! To get off this damned planet!"

Several forks shot into the wall next to him and McCoy stood on shaky legs.

"Damned it may be," Tiberius said, laughing in time with the flicker of the lights. "But as I told you last night, you're not leaving this planet." Next to Tiberius, from empty air, a pale figure appeared, semi-transparent. The housekeeper! Next to her, a larger man, dressed like a butler. Then another figure in the corner, dressed like a nineteenth century royal marine, then a footman, a young lady in an oversized dress, an elderly man with a pitchfork, until soon the dining room was crowded with ghostly figures. 

"You see, you may plot against me all you wish, Doctor," Tiberius said at last, Spock fighting against the hand at his throat as his feet kicked at the air, "you may even trespass and break my rules, but you will stay. And you will die here."

A tureen flew at McCoy and he ducked just in time for it to miss him. Other things flew at him as the pale figures closed in, keeping him busy, he thought, while Tiberius completed whatever he was attempting with Spock. McCoy crawled along the floor which was covered now in gravies and sauces and when he was close enough he could hear Tiberius speaking quietly to Spock about his long Vulcan life and how nice that superior body would be. McCoy caught a knife flying past and crawled under the table.

"Scurry, scurry like a little mouse," Tiberius sing-songed as the table lifted up and away to reveal McCoy at his feet, knife poised to stab Tiberius in the foot, but McCoy was thrown back once again. He sat up just in time to see that though his plan had failed, it had distracted Tiberius enough that Spock could reach for his neck. The pinch was not enough to render the Admiral unconscious, but he was still in a human body, and Jim's face contorted in pain as he released Spock and Spock came crashing down.

Spock recovered quickly, kicked the Admiral's feet out from under him so that he toppled to the ground and Spock pounced, the two of them wrestling, Spock as brutal and dangerous as he had been during his pon farr. 

McCoy tried to stand, to move over to help, but he had his own dangers to worry about, as the figures crowded him, grabbing at him, tearing in feeble grabs at his hair, clawing for his eyes, all of them too weak to injure him alone but together they could prove deadly. He kicked out, swung wildly, picked up his knife and a silver platter and slashed and pushed them away until at last he stood.

"Back! Back all of you!" he shouted, trying to see how Spock was faring in the fight but the overturned table obscured the battle and he heard only shuffling and grunting, broken glass and then… nothing. 

Silence.

Then, one by one the ghostly figures began to puff out, disappearing like a memory forgotten, with no trace left behind.

"Spock?" McCoy called, stepped over a pile of food and flat wear. 

Something moved behind the table, panting and scrabbling up. McCoy felt relief rush into his belly, only to be replaced by dread. It was not Spock but Tiberius standing there, looking beaten but whole. He looked at McCoy and smirked.

"Why you devil!" McCoy shouted and was about to rush forward, knife held high, when Tiberius reached out a hand to something behind the table, and pulled up Spock, alive and well.

"Jim!" McCoy shouted, loud enough to wake the dead.

The house rumbled. At first he thought it was just the clock but it was bigger than that, deeper. The earth shook. There was a sound like a shot as cracks snaked up the walls

Spock and Jim began making their way across the wreckage of the dining room to reach McCoy, and Jim grabbed his shoulder when he got there. "Let's save the reunion for later, gentlemen," he said, and as he did, pieces of plaster began falling from the ceiling and the chandelier jingled and shook dangerously. "Right now I suggest we get out of here."

They ran together, out into the great hall and to the door which stuck again when McCoy tried it, but swung open when Spock pulled at it, then out the door and onto the grassy hill. As the house began to crumble behind them, McCoy heard a familiar sound. He shouldn't have been able to in that noise but he did. His communicator! Miraculously still safe in his jacket pocket.

"Scott to landing party!" came Scotty's frantic voice as the three of them crowded around it in the darkness. 

"We're here, Scotty!" McCoy called. "We've got Jim!"

"Get us out of here, Mr. Scott," Jim said, still catching his breath but smiling when Scotty said he'd be glad to do so.

It took another few moments for the transporter to pinpoint their location and energize, and in that time McCoy and the others turned to the house, its few burning lights winking out as the rooftops and gables came crashing slowly down. The three of them stood in the moonlight watching it, holding each other up with arms and the rush of relief and then they began to shimmer, to disincorporate and disappear, until soon even the shapes of their feet where they had stood in the grass were gone.

No one saw and no one knew, but in the house, at a table that was once grand, sat a figure in the cacophony of crumbling walls and falling oil paintings and marble statuettes. In one hand he held a small gold medal, in the other a glass of wine. He considered it. He took a sip. It poured through his body and onto the ground, staining the rug. He didn't taste it and after a moment, just before the chandelier crashed down and the roof caved in, he tossed the glass among the wreckage, and held his head in his hands and wept.  
_____

McCoy rubbed a hand over his distended belly as he entered his quarters a few hours later. A proper meal and a glass of brandy had him feeling pretty normal again.

They had returned to the great relief of Mr. Scott, who had been about to send down another landing party when the scans, which they had been running constantly, finally picked up their signals. Strangely, according to Scotty, the three of them had been gone for hours, approximately five, not days. Even more curious, was that the planet had disappeared shortly after they had beamed back, leaving no traces of having ever been there at all. A proper ghost planet.

McCoy didn't care. He was home and he was fed and Jim and Spock were safe. A space doctor couldn't ask for much more than that. 

Satisfied and bone-tired, he showered and dressed for bed, turned down the lights then turned them back up just a little and settled in with blankets up to his chin, not caring that he was a foolish grown man sleeping with the lights on. He was just about asleep when he heard it.

_Thud-thud-thud._

His eyes shot open in the half dark. It was impossible. The ghost had been Jim all along! Unless it was the spirit of Tiberius, or Sumner, or whatever his name was. Could he have somehow tagged along on the beam up?

_Thud-thud-thud._

It didn't matter, really; McCoy wasn't cowering anymore. If there was a ghost on this goddamned ship, by god it could go and haunt somebody else!

He stood and crossed the room to his door and it slid open with a snick.

Spock stood there, looking surprised to find McCoy angry in pajamas.

McCoy was about to shout at him for playing dirty tricks when the sound came again, only it was more of a _clack-clack-clack_ now that it wasn't muffled by the walls, and there, down the corridor, an engineer was hammering away behind one of the wall panels.

"Don't you know people are trying to sleep! Can't you do that some other shift?" he shouted, and the engineer looked up, a little embarrassed to have the doctor shouting at him in his pajamas.

"He is only doing his job, Leonard," Spock said softly, and McCoy wasn't sure what annoyed him more, Spock standing there looking so put together, or Spock being so familiar and using that name again.

In response, he waved his arm for Spock to come in and the door shut behind him.

"What do you want?" he said, too gruffly, and regretted it. Spock didn't seem to mind.

"I wished simply to check on you after our... ordeal. How are you, Doctor?"

McCoy narrowed his eyes, the room was still half dark and he wasn't prepared for Spock looking at him with such concern. He ordered the lights up brighter.

"What's gotten into you, Spock? You sound like you've still got Jim in there."

Spock stepped closer. "Negative. There is no one else." His voice was soft and so low and there were a lot of things that a lovesick space doctor could read into those words. In those dark eyes, however, McCoy knew there was only Spock.

"Well," McCoy said, still trying to frown though he no longer felt irritated. "I guess I'm fine. Still a little shaken, maybe."

"Understandable."

"And a little confused."

Spock nodded slightly, quirked a brow. He had moved even closer, so that McCoy looked up at him slightly.

"May I assist in any… clarification?" Spock asked.

McCoy licked his lips, his heart pounding like there was a ghost in the room. "Maybe--" McCoy began to say, then thought better of it. He looked down, away from those tempting lips and knowing eyes. He just didn't know what had been real. What had been Spock or what had been Jim's influence over him, or what he had simply imagined, and he couldn't ask those things. Anyway, nothing had happened that might not happen between friends.

He scratched at the back of his neck. Smiled when he looked up again. "No, I think I'm alright. Thank you, though, Mr. Spock."

Something flickered across Spock's face. McCoy couldn't name it, he just knew he'd never seen it there before. Spock stepped back.

"Very well, Doctor," he said, and nodded his head, almost a polite bow. "Good night."

"Good night, Spock," McCoy said, his heart aching, thinking perhaps he had made a mistake, perhaps he should have--

"Doctor," Spock said at the door, just before it snicked open.

"Yes, Spock?"

"Should you find your quarters to be unacceptable in any way, supernatural or otherwise, please consider that you would be welcome in mine."

Spock didn't smile but McCoy did. "I'll do that, Mr. Spock."


End file.
